Crossing the Walls
by Ibrium
Summary: A Bakumatsu oneshot. Akizuki and Kanna are finding out that they may have more in common than they think, if only for one night.


Crossing the Walls

A Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto Fanfic

Akizuki/Kanna

By Ibrium

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Author's note: For those who have watched Bakumatsu, good job. You are wonderful human beings (possibly). For those of you who have not and have no idea what the hell this is based on: Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto: find it, watch it, love it. This story is my spin on episode 8.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bakumatsu. If I did the ending would have been better and (attempting to avoid spoilers) someone would not have died. And Akizuki would wear cool boots and Kanna would have better aim.

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Akizuki charged through the narrow halls of the sprawling compound, hunting the faint footfalls that he could hear distantly. His black cloak swished against the paper walls and cast odd, rippling shadows in the light of the dim lanterns. One hand was curled firmly around the hilt of his dragon-headed blade while the other rested just below the _tsuba_ to keep the blade from settling more deeply in the sheath and to ensure a swift draw. He was panting slightly with the exertion of running down the blonde Englishman and his breath puffed white in the darkened house. To his left, something rattled.

Sandaled feet slid on the polished _tatami_ floors as Akizuki skidded to a halt, the grip on his sword tightening before relaxing. Sweat-dampened brown hair fell into his dark blue eyes, stinging the sensitive flesh there so that reflexive tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. There was a soft click as somewhere close by the rotating cylinder of a long-barreled revolver turned to load another bullet. The swordsman crouched slightly to make himself a smaller target and pressed his back to one of the wood struts that supported the ranks of sliding paper doors. In front of him, a single, half-melted white candle sat in a tall candlestick, casting warm orange light across his face and making his sharp-angled eyes stand out starkly against his skin. He frowned at the dim glow: the light would make his shadow dance across the thin walls, revealing his position to Kanna. Snarling faintly, he slashed out at the candle with his unsheathed blade, snuffing the flame without ever damaging the candle itself. A pool of darkness spread around him, hiding his silhouette from prying eyes.

The new darkness only made the gleam of the other candles in the hall more apparent. It was an unsafe place to lay in wait for the gunner: too open, too obvious. Akizuki moved like a cat, flowing gracefully from one pinprick of light to the next, putting out each of the cheerful flames with a quick flick of his sword until the entire passage was plunged into night before he darted through an open door into another hallway, sliding the door shut quietly behind him.

Seconds later, Kanna burst into the now-darkened passage, crushing one of the paper screens beneath him as he rolled to his feet, both of his revolvers pointing dead ahead. Smoke billowed across the floor in thick waves, its sickly sweet smell tickling the Englishman's nose. He padded down the wide hall, the stiff heels of his riding boots clicking softly against the _tatami_ with each delicate step. Then as if sensing the Eternal Assassin's presence, he froze momentarily before unconsciously mimicking Akizuki's earlier action by leaping back so that his spine lay against the smooth wood of a support pole. The gunner and swordsman both were absolutely still for a scant few seconds as each reveled in the absolute certainty that just on the other side of the thin paper wall was their opponent. Akizuki crouched lower and raised his sword slowly, twisting it in his grasp so that the wickedly sharp point hung parallel to the floor, ready to stab into the blonde man's flesh at any moment. Kanna breathed in short, shallow movements in an attempt to keep the brown-haired swordsman from discerning his exact location while strategies flitted through his mind at a lightning pace, each one being examined and discarded when it was found lacking.

The moment elongated almost painfully, the tension rising swiftly as each combatant waited for the other to make the first move, the first mistake, and give away their position. Finally the waiting grew to be too much for the edgy gunner and he stretched out one booted foot and knocked over a candlestick three feet away with a swift kick. Instantly two feet of forged steel sliced through the thin paper above where the long metal stand had struck the ground. Kanna leapt away and brought both of his guns to bear on the point at which the sword had pierced the wall and squeezed off several shots, leaving fist-sized holes in the paper screen before he kicked it down into the room beyond. The room was empty so the gunner advanced slowly, warily, looking for a sign of the path Akizuki had taken as he fled. There was no clue in that room as to the Japanese man's whereabouts, but in the next room down, one of the many _tatami_ mats had been displaced, leaving one corner protruding from the uniformly smooth floor. The English-raised assassin trained the barrels of his revolvers on the loose floor mat and fired again, the shots ringing loud in the quiet of the large compound. Suddenly from behind, a part of the floor flew upward, obscuring Kanna's view. Kanna fired again and tight-woven bamboo exploded into fragments that hung in the air. Blood splashed from a shallow cut on the blonde man's cheek where Akizuki had slashed him with the very tip of his blade. The floor covering fell as if in slow motion, revealing the opponents to each others' gaze.

Akizuki clutched his left shoulder with his right hand where the blue of his sleeve was stained a rusty brown with blood from a gun-shot wound and their eyes locked in a heated stare even as Kanna leveled one of his revolvers at Akizuki's face. The swordsman grabbed the gun firmly around the canister and directed it away from his face, their eyes never shifting away. The brown-haired samurai's deep blue eyes narrowed slightly as he searched the gunner's only uncovered eye for something only he understood. Kanna responded to the sudden wave of discomfiture by jerking up his second gun which was also caught and forced away by the physically stronger swordsman. They stood close now, their hands almost touching on the cool metal of Kanna's weapons and their breath mingling in the close air between them. Akizuki dragged the blonde man's weapons down until they were pointed at the floor and the change in their position brought the two closer still. Kanna tugged at his guns in a desperate attempt to free them from the intense swordsman's grip but only managed to pull his enemy closer. Fear flickered briefly in Kanna's slate grey eye, fear that Akizuki saw and pressed to his advantage by stepping closer still to the wary gunslinger. Kanna stood as if paralyzed, his eye as wild as a cornered beast's, and the blue-clad man took the opportunity to slam his head into Kanna's face before whirling away and taking off.

"My eye…" the half-blind blonde hissed in pain as he dropped to one knee. His vision blurred and dimmed, but he rallied swiftly and gave chase. Their path led them through several rooms to a long corridor. The servant of the Queen allowed himself a small smile of triumph when he saw that the samurai was trapped and unable to move forward due to the unexpected presence of a thick, solid load-bearing wall. He prepared himself to fire again by dropping the spent canisters to the ground, replacing them with fresh ones from the crossed belts that hugged his narrow hips. He followed the other man closely, almost closely enough to catch hold of the trailing edge of the black cloak, and raised his revolvers once more to take the swordsman's life. Akizuki, however, was not about to die so easily, and he used the sturdy wall as a springboard to launch himself over the approaching Kanna's head. The gunner whipped around immediately and fired a salvo of bullets that was deflected by one swing of Akizuki's blade. A second slash of the sword sent one of the revolvers spinning out of Kanna's impact-numbed left hand and a swift kick to the knees caused the slim man to collapse in an ungraceful heap on the floor. Akizuki held his sword in a position that would allow him to sever the blonde head with a single blow, but his movement was forestalled by Kanna's last revolver pointing at his forehead. Once more, the two found themselves engaged in a staring match. Kanna's clear grey eye gazed back into the sweltering heat of Akizuki's gaze, heat that he dismissed as being passion for the battle. The Englishman smiled then, deliberately lifting his last revolver and taking aim as he drew back the hammer to fire. Akizuki matched his movements with a lightning-quick strike that left both weapons skittering across the floor away from their owners. A short dagger appeared in the Japanese man's hand as though by magic and he pressed it gently against the smooth, pale flesh of Kanna's throat.

"You're out of bullets," the dark-haired man breathed softly into Kanna's face. The delicate-appearing gunslinger stared back at the man who currently held him captive and helpless, his one grey eye wide with a mixture of surprise, ill-concealed fear, and new-found respect. Akizuki met that frost-colored gaze with his own unwavering, sea-blue stare. There in those cobalt eyes was an emotion that Kanna had never seen directed at him before: empathy. The gunner trembled slightly at that, having expected hatred or fury from the man he had just spent the better part of ten minutes trying to kill. Those emotions he understood and knew how to deal with, but the soft look he was receiving only served to bring back memories that he had long tried to repress. He wrenched his face away and lowered his eyes to the floor so that his expression was shielded by his shoulder-length, fine blonde hair and his long, thick lashes. The graceful man felt as though all of the layers of carefully-constructed emotional barriers that had protected him since his mother abandoned him were weakening and sliding away under that calm scrutiny.

Akizuki sighed and brought his free hand to Kanna's chin, gripping it gently with firm fingers to turn the other man's face back to him. The Englishman refused to meet his gaze again so the samurai satisfied his concern momentarily by fingering the cut that marred one of the high cheekbones. He rubbed the sticky scarlet fluid between his fingers contemplatively and Kanna flinched away. The swordsman let him tumble backwards, slipping the knife that he had held against the blonde's throat back into its hidden sheathe and scooping up his dragon-hilted sword with the other hand. Kanna didn't respond to his enemy's rearmament. Akizuki noticed Kanna's strange behavior as he made as if to leave and his recognition of the oddity translated into a hesitation of his part.

"Are you…" Akizuki began, stumbling over his words as he worked to overcome his under-socialized past. "Are you…going to be alright?"

Kanna stared back blankly, his eye wide open but seeing only the past and his mother's face vanishing behind a curtain in an increasingly-distant carriage. Remembered pain made him double over and clutch at his covered eye with a groan of pain. "My eye," he gasped quietly as he rubbed not-so-gently at the leather patch over his right eye. Akizuki winced at the painfully apparent weakness the normally-stoic man.

"Let me see," he said gruffly, feeling an indistinct sensation of guilt that he had rammed his skull into Kanna's face and may have been the cause of the man's current pain. He knelt in front of the slender gunslinger and tried to pull the pale hands away from the twisted face. Kanna struggled slightly but offered little actual resistance to the swordsman as his face was pulled toward the samurai, his features still obscured by the messy tendrils of pale blonde silk that hung in his face. Akizuki brushed away a soft, fine mass of blonde bangs to reveal Kanna's face with one hand then used that same hand to pull gently at Kanna's soft brown suede eye-patch. A cry of distress wrung itself from the Englishman's throat and he shoved at Akizuki's unmoving bulk in a futile attempt to drive him away. Shame and pain chased each other across Kanna's face.

"Don't," Kanna whispered, his words a breathy and trembling plea rather than a sharp command as he had intended.

"Why not?" Akizuki responded just as quietly as he gripped the delicate gunslinger's wrists to keep him from fleeing. A long silence descended while Kanna struggled to compose himself and pull himself out of the torments of the past.

"She said it was ugly," he finally confessed in broken tones. Akizuki rocked back onto his heels in surprise: he was not expecting the usually-stoic man to be so deeply affected by his past given his typical comportment. _I suppose I should not be so stunned after all, given my own past_, Akizuki thought wryly. His lips twisted into a faint, self-mocking style. He had been obsessed with his position as Eternal Assassin far too long for him not to understand the impact the past can have on a person. Still, seeing his fragile-looking opponent crouching before him like a frightened animal roused an indescribable loathing in him. Suddenly and irrationally, Akizuki felt a deep, furious hate for Kanna. He hated him for his weakness, hated him for his crippling connection to the past, hated him for just being because every time the samurai saw the Englishman and every time they fought Akizuki could see disturbing parallels. _How long has he devoted himself to this one task? _He wondered, _has he been searching for as long as I have?_ Hands that had lain still in his lap could rest no longer and Akizuki lashed out and snatched at the slim leather strap that crossed Kanna's temple. The strip of leather holding the patch in place broke with a soft snap and Akizuki could see Kanna's full face for the first time.

A soft breath whispered from in between Akizuki's parted lips when the finely-drawn, delicate features of Kanna's face were revealed to him. Contrary to what was expected, his opponent's skin was flawless and smooth, an even, pale tan that complemented each glistening golden strand of hair that hung down into soulful grey eyes. Kanna's right eye, an object of incredible shame and embarrassment, was neither hideous nor truly disfigured. Instead, only a thin white line streaked down from his pale brow to just above his high cheekbones, bifurcating his long, thick lashes. The swordsman gazed on his enemy's face for long moments, drinking in the surprisingly beautiful visage before giving any sign that he was even moved by the view.

"She was wrong," Akizuki sighed gently as he leaned closer to Kanna, whose face was still trapped in the sable-haired man's hands. The blonde Englishman shuddered and curled up by drawing his knees to his chest, but he made no move to pull his jaw out of Akizuki's cradling hands. Still caught up by the thrill of discovery, the Eternal Assassin rubbed a thumb lightly over the scar. To his surprise, the blind eye opened to reveal an eye that had no pupil, only a soft, mistily grey haze like a cataract where the iris should have been.

"It's ugly," Kanna sobbed against Akizuki's calloused hands. Although the fragile sharpshooter seemed quite sure of this diagnosis, Akizuki, try as he might, could find nothing truly displeasing there. True the eye was a little disturbing, but the dove-toned hues that swirled across it were enchanting in their own way and did nothing to detract from the beauty of the face in which they resided. Even the pale scar only added to his visual appeal.

"I don't think so." The swordsman managed to bite out a reply as he pressed even closer and lowered his head so that their lips were only a fraction of an inch apart. He bent further still while keeping his deep blue eyes open and locked with Kanna's only slightly mismatched grey ones, drawn by some irresistible force but yet waiting and expecting to by driven away. Rather than reacting with repulsion as the Eternal Assassin had expected in some corner of his mind, the pretty Englishman moved nearer and met Akizuki's lips with his own in a soft, tentative kiss that was really no more than the slightest of brushes of skin against skin. They parted momentarily then sought each other's mouths again with increased force, still entrapped by the strange feelings of rightness and belonging. Akizuki let his eyes flutter shut as his lips slid again and again against Kanna's. He could feel the slimmer man's lips part softly and just the hint of a moist tongue flicked out to taste his lower lip.

"Yōjirō," Kanna moaned breathily.

Akizuki pulled away swiftly and disentangled himself from Kanna's gripping hands. He had been startled by Kanna's sudden use of his name as the Englishman had never given any indication of his knowing it, much less the inclination to use it. Guileless and clouded grey eyes flickered open and stared back at him in confusion.

"Why—?" the named swordsman started to ask only to be stopped in midsentence by slim digits that rose to cover his mouth.

"Mr. Parkes told me when he gave me orders to…," the blonde man blushed slightly and lowered his gaze before he finished rather lamely, "prevent you from damaging the success of his goals and destroying the Hasha no Kubi."

"To kill me." At those words Kanna flinched and looked about uneasily, but the handsome young man had enough pride in his British allegiance to admit to those orders.

"Yes. To kill you."

Yōjirō waited a moment for the tense silence between them to edge into near-discomfort before allowing his dry humor to surface: "Do I have to worry for my safety when I am so close to you, or can you disobey long enough to—umm."

Kanna's hurried kiss did exactly what it was intended to; Yōjirō's mouth had stopped moving to confront the new and entirely more appealing option presented to it. When then the two men were bordering on breathless, Kanna pulled away slowly and cautiously as though he were making sure that Akizuki was well and truly shut up before he pulled back entirely.

"Just for tonight, let me forget who I serve and what I've promised to do. Just for tonight."

A thousand different things could have been said, an infinite array of soft, sweet words to be whispered, but Kanna's plea, so simple and heartfelt, was more eloquent then all of them. As the handsome, chocolate-maned swordsman knelt there in front of his polar opposite he found that he had never felt closer to anyone in his life; not even the budding affection for Kakunojō that warmed his heart could compare to the powerful compulsion that drew him close to the trembling Englishman. Yōjirō allowed his eyes to close briefly so that he could better focus on the tangled knots of emotion and reason that hindered his decision making. In the darkness behind his lids, the Eternal Assassin found his answer.

"Just for tonight."

When he whispered those words back to the delicate blonde seated on the _tatami_ mats before him Akizuki felt an incredible weight lift off of his chest. Here was the one person with whom he could share his pain, his life, his duties and even though they stood on opposite sides of the same battle, just knowing the other was there was enough to satisfy him, to fill the aching loneliness that crept up on the darkest nights. Kanna smiled, a weak, pained smile that really was no more that a mirthless twist of lips that had gone too long without laughing and Akizuki knew that he was lost.

They crashed together again in a kiss that bordered on violent, nearly a continuation of the mortal struggle that had engaged their skills only moments earlier. Hurried hands groped for buckles; Akizuki made quick work of the twin clasps that held Kanna's crossed belts on over his hips and the heavy, bullet-laden leather straps slid to the floor with a metallic clank. Kanna was less careful and simply snapped the thin ties that bound his would-be lover's armor to his chest, allowing the thick steel plate to drop to the _tatami_ mats with destructive force.

"You should be more careful," Akizuki sighed out, his breath coming in short, quick pants as his body sought desperately for air. Kanna remained silent, his soft pink lips never lifting from their place on the swordsman's neck where they suckled and nipped at the sensitive flesh until both men were sure that the thin skin would be mottled darkly with bruises in the morning. Scorching heat raged through them, clouding their vision and making them eager to bare more and more flesh to the cool, dry air of the mansion. Kanna's long buckskin greatcoat was tossed aside carelessly to crumple in a corner, followed shortly by the much darker fabric of the swordsman's high-collared cloak and the white softness of Akiziki's button-down shirt.

Kanna wasted no time in exploring the taut, smooth flesh his questing hands revealed and even before Akizuki's shirt had fallen, the blonde gunslinger's mouth had dropped lower to dance attention on the powerful muscles of Akizuki's chest. The swordsman rasped out a breathless gasp and arched his back to press himself closer to his lover's hungry mouth. Sharp teeth awaited him and Kanna bit at his nipple teasingly before lapping at the small hurt he had created. Hands skilled and calloused from long years of swordsmanship gripped helplessly at the silky blonde hair of the man in front of him in an attempt to force his head lower, closer to the place Akizuki most wanted that pyretic mouth to be. Kanna shot him a darkly amused glance from under his lashes and let his lips wander down the Eternal Assassin's broad chest to the firm, rippling muscles of his abdomen only to pause with his tongue flicking against the dimple of Akizuki's bellybutton.

"Damn it," Akizuki growled impatiently, his eyes flaring with eldritch blue light. He pulled his hands roughly from the Englishman's hair, not caring that some of the fine strands snagged on his roughened skin and were yanked from the other man's sensitive scalp, so that he could pluck at the ties that held up his _hakama_. The dark fabric gave reluctantly, freeing Akizuki's erection. The swordsman breathed a sigh of relief and redoubled his efforts at directing Kanna's head.

"You're not even going to finish undressing?" Kanna questioned in a husky voice. He seemed amused by Akizuki's actions, but conceded the point swiftly enough. Just as Akizuki started contemplating the threat of severe bodily harm as a potential motivator the blonde Englishman lowered his head and swallowed the swordsman's length.

Yōjirō's head fell back and his mouth fell open in a silent scream. His experience with such matters was limited to a single night with a drunken Ryoma followed by days of merciless teasing, but even then Ryoma had _never_ done anything like this for him. He was lost in the feeling of the soft, wet heat of Kanna's mouth, the agile strength of his tongue and the slight scrape of his teeth.

"Ka—Kanna! I'm—ah!—I'm going to--!" Yōjirō gasped out a warning as best he could. Instantly the blonde man pulled back and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, leaving the poor swordsman writhing in mingled agony and pleasure.

"Wha--?" the Eternal Assassin tried to ask, only to be cut off by Kanna's mouth sealing over his once more. The swordsman could taste himself on the other man's lips and he shivered at the thought. Kanna didn't give him any time to think about it though; he rose quickly to stand in front of the prone form of his lover and stripped out of his heeled knee boots, his vest and his tawny trousers, keeping only the loose, ruffled white shirt that generally only peeped from the hems of his collar and sleeves. The bottom of the shirt fell to the tops of Kanna's thighs, giving him the appearance of modesty even while the diaphanous fabric of the well-worn garment did little to hide the blonde man's obvious arousal.

"You're staring," Kanna observed as calmly as possible given the circumstances. Akizuki could only nod in agreement as the beautiful man lowered himself down to straddle the swordsman's thighs. It was at that moment, when Kanna lifted himself up on his knees, aided by his grip on Yōjirō's shoulders, and impaled himself on the chocolate-haired man's length, that Akizuki realized how little control he had over the situation. Even more strangely, he found that he didn't much care.

Somewhere in the back of his pleasure-numbed mind, Akizuki remembered hazily that Kanna's own weeping erection was being entirely neglected and he endeavored to regain enough control of his own limbs to stroke him in time with the rhythm the lithe gunslinger had set. Sweat rolled down between them, sticking their hair to their bodies and turning Kanna's shirt completely transparent. Incoherent cries of pleasure rose from the swordsman to be joined with short gasps of delight from the blonde man above him.

Suddenly Akizuki's back arched and he cried out in ecstasy. Kanna followed shortly after and collapsed in a boneless heap on the swordsman's chest. They lay silently in the dark room on the cold floor, panting and allowing their tired bodies to cool. After a while, Kanna lifted himself away to lie beside Yōjirō and as the night outside grew older, the gunslinger's breath evened out and he fell asleep.

Akizuki turned his head to gaze at his unexpected lover whose pale flesh and shirt glowed with a strange luminescence in the small room. Smoke, heavy and sweet-smelling, began to wisp up from under the door. _The Hasha no Kubi!_ Akizuki remembered with a jolt, sitting up quickly and casting about wildly for his clothes. He grimaced at the mess that was drying on his loins, a mixture of semen and blood, but finished dressing none-the-less. It was only after he had reached the door that he paused with one hand outstretched to pull the screen back. Kanna sighed slightly in his sleep and curled up on his side with his hands tucked under his cheek and his tangled hair falling into his face. The shirt was beginning to ride up on the slim man's hips, revealing largish smears of blood down the backs of his thighs. Akizuki frowned and hurriedly squashed the guilty feeling that was welling up inside his chest. He could not, however, feign enough detachment to stop himself from going back and pulling the shirt back down to a more modest position or from covering the blonde Englishman with his own coat. As he settled the buckskin greatcoat over Kanna's shoulders, Akizuki bent and brushed one hand through the soft blonde hair and pressed a gentle kiss to the high cheekbone just underneath the blind eye.

"Thank you," the Eternal Assassin whispered. "Sleep well, if only just for tonight."

Seconds later, the swordsman was gone, leaving behind only the lingering scent of sweat and sex.

The next morning Kanna returned to Mr. Parkes' stateroom looking stiff and exhausted and holding one hand over his blind eye.

"Where were you last night?" Mr. Parkes snapped furiously. Kanna sighed and allowed his hand to drop, looking for the first time at the man who commanded him with both eyes. The elder man flinched back at the sight of the ruined eye and the gunslinger did something entirely out of character: he laughed mockingly.

"I was learning something about myself. Just for one night." And with that, the handsome blonde retreated to his room, closing the door with a firm snap.

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Author's End Notes: so that's what you get when you mix two in the morning, excessive sugar, two bishonen, and a bad plot bunny together. Interesting...and vaguely disturbing. Anyway, I might write anoer oneshot for some other anime so that I can forever remember my own lousy ideas. Please review. Anyone up for a Trinity Blood oneshot? D. gray man? Advent Children? Ah, choices, choices.

Here's to hoping that you'll still read my stories in the future.


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